Magpies hit their straps, Saints hit the wall

Less than 35,000 were at Etihad stadium on Friday to watch Collingwood trounce St Kilda by 86 points, the smallest ever Friday night crowd for a Collingwood game against another Victorian team. Those who stayed away knew what they weren't doing. Travis Cloke returned to form, but tacitly summed up the mood of the meeting at the end when he refused an on-ground interview with Channel 7. Twelve marks and five goals against a threadbare St Kilda team was nothing to crow about, he seemed to say by his silence.

Since the bye, Collingwood has stuttered like Josh Kennedy kicking at goal. This night, there were more misteps, or rather miskicks, until at last the Magpies settled into their stride. The result was a patchy 15-goal win, if there is such a thing. Two bursts of eight unanswered goals accounted for most of it. The first was in just 13 minutes of play each side of quarter-time. The second was in the last quarter, when St Kilda was spent. "We've had plenty of three-quarter performances this year," said coach Nathan Buckley. "This was our first four-quarter performance."

Collingwood out-tackled St Kilda 77-60, but it was weight as much as numbers of tackles that told. For long stretches, the Magpies' forward pressure forced the callow Saints' defence into hasty error after hasty error, only for Collingwood to return the compliment by kicking profligately back into the forward line, sometimes to two or three unmanned Saints. Too often, when the Magpies needed to lower their eyes, they saw only stars. Buckley acknowledged it, in coach-speak. "There were still areas of improvement," he said. "Some of our offence, and some of our decisions, especially in the front half before entering the 50, needed to be better."

But Collingwood was ruthless in midfield and drove the ball forward often enough that a substantial score was inevitable. Cloke, kicking with greater certainty than at any time this season, visibly grew in authority and got his bag. Small forwards Alex Fasolo and Jamie Elliott kicked four each. About each, it can be said that they know where the goals are. Oddly, they have been behind Fasolo so far this season, as Buckley sought to add a defensive component to his game. Now he has presented his forward credentials again.

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There was about this match an air of grim certainty from the start. Quickly, Collingwood was down three players from its selected side, not to mention a couple of goals. Dane Swan and Brodie Grundy withdrew pre-match, and Nick Maxwell was forced out of the game and several to come because of a calf injury. Steele Sidebottom is likely to join him in the dug-out after skittling St Kilda's Maverick Weller at the first bounce in such a way as is certain to occasion a loud banging of the match review panel's gavel. In the first half, Sidebottom played like a man who knew he had to get a lot of kicks this week.

St Kilda fared no better. Weller had to be subbed, with two knock-on effects. One was to thwart a planned tag on Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury. The other was that there was no reliever for Luke Delaney when he sustained hip injury in the second half. Delaney had battled manfully with Cloke, but thereafter that match-up was a miniature of the match itself; it was played out on unequal terms.

Buckley could afford to nit-pick about a 15-goal win. St Kilda coach Alan Richardson was forced to fossick for nuggets in another crushing defeat. "It's probably been our story for the last few games: good for halves, but that's it," he said. "We were found wanting in the last quarter." Individually, many stood up, Richardson said, and named them: Ross, Bruce, Newnnes, Dunstan, Shenton, Murdoch in the first half. It is typical of a team in St Kilda's parlous position that the sum of the parts adds up to less than their prospective whole. The only answer is patience, a virtue St Kilda people have had to learn, lifetimes at a time.

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The contrast between two lesser lights this night probably captured its essence. Aaron Siposs sparkled in moments for the Saints, but did not lay a single tackle. It was Richardson who noted this. Tyson Goldsack rarely laid his hands on the ball for the Magpies, but did manage six bone-crunching tackles. It was Buckley who noted this.